Best buy!

The national guide, "Barron's Best Buys in College Education," has placed Kettering on a select list of only 247 institutions in the country recognized for quality, affordability and student satisfaction.

Kettering University is one of the country's "best buys" says the prestigious college guide "Barron's Best Buys in College Education," which announced the national recognition this week.

Barron's Publicity Manager Steve Matteo said the final 247 colleges chosen for the current Barron's listing represents the best combination of sound data and student satisfaction. "Colleges are selected to appear in "Best Buys in College Education" based on various criteria, including tuition rates, as well as the results of a questionnaire that is filled out by the dean of students and by students," Matteo explained.

The two main features of the "Best Buys in College Education" are the data capsules and profiles, which gives such information as the campus setting, student/faculty ratio, freshman profile, faculty profile, tuition and fees, and room and board, Matteo said. "Each profile is organized around the same basic components: student body, academics, facilities, special programs, campus life, cost cutters, rate of return, payoff and bottom line," he added.

Bob Nichols, Kettering vice president for Enrollment Management, said the national recognition is especially significant because Kettering's focus is on preparing tomorrow's leaders in the specialty fields of engineering, business and the sciences. "A technical education is the most expensive education in this country," Nichols said. "To receive this national designation from a highly regarded publication like 'Barron's' says we are focused on quality of education and affordability in delivery. That third-party point-of-view is priceless," he added.

Michigan schools named to the list include Albion, Alma, Hope and Kalamazoo colleges and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Nationally, the list includes Purdue University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the Rochester Institute of Technology.

One Mechanical Engineering student from Kettering is quoted as saying: "Students who make it at Kettering don't expect to get a job or admission into graduate or professional school, they expect to get a good job or admission into a top school. For those graduates who have worked hard both on the job and in the classroom, that's a goal implicit in the small type on the diploma."

The "best buy" designation from "Barron's" joins a growing list of national rankings received by Kettering in recent months. Briefly, the national designations include:

U.S. News & World Report's "America's BestColleges Guide" reported in August that Kettering retained its #1 ranking in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering for the seventh year in a row. Kettering's Mechanical Engineering program jumped to #3 in the country and Electrical and Computer Engineering rose to #7 nationally. Overall, Kettering is ranked #12 in its category of undergraduate programs without a Ph.d.

The Princeton Review ranked Kettering as a "Best Midwestern College" for the fourth year in a row, also in August. "The Princeton Review recognition is important because the publication heavily relies on student input in determining its choices," said Kettering President Stan Liberty. "We appreciate being endorsed as one of the top engineering institutions, especially since this recognition focuses on the educational environment we have created," Liberty added.

In May, "Cool Colleges 2006-07" called Kettering "an engineer's dream school ... it is loaded with labs and equipment, and students have lots of access to the labs starting freshman year. The school is very aggressively recruiting women and minorities and has a high minority retention rate as well."

"Diverse Issues in Higher Education" placed Kettering among the top 30 schools for graduating African-American engineering majors. The 2006 listing of the country's top 100 undergraduate degree producers was announced June 1.

Matteo noted that Barron's "best buys" is in its ninth edition and is now available in bookstores and online.